HDTV Movie Premieres: October 9-15

The X-Files: I Want to Believe: TV3, 8.30pm Saturday.

Mulder and Scully’s first investigation in 10 years is inexplicably conventional given the show’s spooky legacy. Yet that doesn’t stop the filmmakers from expecting us to swallow the implausible — what fans might accept as expedient drama on TV doesn’t cut it on the big screen. Billy Connolly plays a psychic priest-cum-paedophile who helps the duo search for women who have been mysteriously abducted (but not by ETs). The expert editing keeps you hooked but otherwise this is one of Hollywood’s biggest creative misjudgements since the first X-Files movie. Creator Chris Carter directs; David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson again star. (2009)

Johnny English: Sky Movies Greats, 8.30pm Saturday.

“My name is Bean …” Rowan Atkinson plays a bumbling secret agent in a slapstick spoof that stretches patience more than his talent. Inexplicably, Natalie Imbruglia, Tim Pigott-Smith and John Malkovich co-star. (2003)

Year One: Sky Movies, 8.30pm Sunday.

Jack Black and Michael Cera play disgraced cavemen who go on an epic journey of discovery. Harold Ramis (Groundhog Day) directs one of his worst movies. As Empire quipped: “Unless you pine for second-tier Mel Brooks, you’ll find more laughs in the Old Testament itself.” (2009)

A Perfect Getaway: Sky Movies, 8.30pm Friday.

This is one of those taut, ingenious thrillers that you’ll immediately want to watch again, just to see if the filmmakers trip over any of the traps they set the viewer. It concerns six couples whose paths cross when they go bush in a remote part of Hawaii where honeymoon killers lurk. Which is the true gruesome twosome will keep you guessing until the satisfying, suspenseful finale. As far as B-grade thrillers go, A Perfect Getaway is a nigh perfect example of the genre. David Twohy (The Chronicles of Riddick) directs Timothy Olyphant, Milla Jovovich, Steve Zahn and Lost’s Kiele Sanchez. (2009)

Phone Booth: Sky Movies Greats, 8.30pm Friday.

Kiefer Sutherland is a sniper with a grudge against Big Apple publicist Colin Farrell in this taut, claustrophobic thriller that uses real-time and split-screen techniques reminiscent of Sutherland’s TV hit, 24. Shot in only 10 days, it unfolds within the course of the target being trapped in a telephone box where the miffed rifleman puts his life on hold while humiliating him publicly for his sins. The novel scenario is intriguing and suspenseful but the outcome isn’t clever or exciting enough to satisfy. (2002)